Essential Steps For Producing Reference Materials For Calibration, Quality Control, Validation, And Establishment Of Metrological Traceability

The International Standards Organization’s Committee on Reference Materials (ISO-REMCO) and its Committee on Conformity Assessment (ISO-CASCO) have outlined a comprehensive set of requirements that reference material (RM) producers can use to demonstrate their competence and ensure the quality of the RMs they produce. ISO 17034 General requirements for the competence of reference material producers covers the production of RMs, whether they are to be used for establishing metrological traceability, for maintaining measurement quality control, or for verifying and validating measurement methods. Elements of this standard can also be applied to the case where laboratories need to develop their own RMs for in-house use when commercially available materials are not available. This presentation provides details on the required elements of RM production, including the special case of Certified Reference Materials (CRMs), how specialized RMs can be derived from CRMs, and how customized in-house RMs can be developed.